How to prevent the allure of digital media from overtaking you or your loved ones

I admit it: I love technology. It’s the air I breathe. I tweet. I post to Facebook (you can find me there often—but not right now; keep reading!). I keep my Android smartphone with me at all times and live on my “big” computer for hours every day. I have multiple monitors. I have multiple email accounts, which all forward to one another to ensure I always get my messages, which are also synched to my phone. I own a Kindle. I own an iPad.

So—I get it. I understand the pull, the excitement, the fun of the digital forms of technology. And I am a true believer in harnessing their positives.

But I’m also a counselor and an addiction specialist, and some of what I see in digital media is deeply alarming. Kids age 8 through 18 spend almost 7-1/2 hours every day awash in media, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study. Factoring in their ability to multitask (listening to music while browsing Facebook, for example), their media exposure rises to almost 11 hours a day—every day. Teens spend as much time (or more) with their media as parents do at work. Add in school and sleep, and it’s amazing how little time is left for a family to be a family. read more

Great parenting doesn’t happen by accident—ask Kate Battistelli, mother of Dove award-winning recording artist Francesca Battistelli. Through raising her daughter to understand her gifts and calling, Kate has discovered a few keys to steering children toward their destiny in God.

When my daughter, Francesca, was a little girl it was obvious that she had a flair for the dramatic and a bent toward the performing arts. So into ballet she went, then show choir and community theater, singing lessons, and later professional theater, guitar lessons, camps, conferences and college—all with an eye toward the future and a sense God had a plan for her in the performing arts.

Could I have ever known when she was 4 years old and starting ballet that she would grow up to be a Grammy-nominated contemporary Christian singer with five Dove Awards and five top-10 singles? Did I know her songs would be played on a variety of television shows and major motion pictures—all within the first two years of her career? Of course not. But I did know God had something special for her—just as He has for your child.

Successful adults don’t happen by accident. It takes intentional effort to raise children to adulthood who have a strong sense of their destiny in God, a passion to serve Him and a deep knowledge of His gifts and callings. As parents, we know our children better than anyone else. By partnering with God we can equip them to go after their dreams and be all He called and created them to be. read more